Hollow victory

Most scorecards show that the Republican Party took it on the chin last week when Congress finally reached an agreement to fully reopen the government and approve a raising of the debt limit.

But let’s not be too quick to applaud President Obama and his Democratic minions on the heels of the 16-day partial government shutdown.

First of all, the president can say all he wants that it’s time for everyone to come together, but part of the reason the country found itself in this position is because he refused to “come together” — even as the Republicans were repeatedly requesting his presence to negotiate an agreement.

Secondly, the party of the donkey may think it is slick by claiming the GOP was putting itself on life-support by taking aim at Obamacare, saying the law wasn’t available for amending, but it was the president himself who opened the law up for amending when he bypassed Congress to amend the law by delaying the corporate portion.

Thirdly, while Dems are lifting toasts to their perceived victory, it is a shallow and temporary one, indeed. What they have succeeded in doing, more than anything else, is piling massive debt on the shoulders of our children and grandchildren — as well as assuring that Obama will have the distinction of creating more American debt than every single president before him combined.

And finally, this agreement that Obama and the Democrats are so jubilant over has a 90-day warranty attached, which means we could very well be back at square one in early February 2014.

Even worse: During the 16 days of political ping-pong, we all got to see just how mean and hurtful our president can be when his efforts to ram something down the American people’s throat gets challenged. His shuttering of open-air monuments, even to veterans, and not allowing death benefits to be paid to soldiers killed in action is abominable — by the military’s commander in chief, no less — and probably should have stirred impeachment thoughts.

If there was any real flaw within the Republican Party, it is that it “fought the good fight” as a fractured group — ignoring one of the most famous phrases by Patrick Henry … “United we stand, divided we fall.”

In the end, there are no victors. And the biggest loser by far is the American people — especially because round two looms in about 90 days.

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